Post navigation

Saturday is for Sharing – Musings on Saturday Morning

Saturday is for Sharing

Saturday Musings ~

on the LAST DAY OF JUNE, 2018

Lynda McKinney Lambert

An essay by Lynda McKinney Lambert

Walk dogs – Check!

Morning Coffee – Check!

Open window for Miss Opal – Check!

Read E-mail – Check!

Miss Opal is my feline writing companion.

She is seated on top of my file cabinet, watching intently out the open window as she does each morning. Like all cats, she is intrigued by the bird sounds and life passing by on this rural western Pennsylvania road. We begin our days before dawn. We rise with the crows and the red-tailed hawks that soar over the landscape outside our window.

Next Saturday, I will present my first Guest Author on “Saturday is for Sharing.”

That is exciting because I have some stellar authors lined up for this new adventure. You will love meeting my guests!

I am so interested in the responses to the questions I ask my guests.

Reading them and working on the articles caused me to do some musing on my own thoughts about what I do as a visual artist and a writer/author. I work across disciplines in everything I do.

First, I considered my own challenge –

I am a blind person.

Unlike some other artists and writers who are challenged with a handicap or disability, I have never written much about the sudden sight loss that I experienced eleven years ago.

I was at the height of a wonderful career and my personal life was fantastic the year I turned sixty-four.

I worked out at the gym 6-7 days a week. My body was so healthy and I felt so good in my skin. Hi energy! Excited about life! Living my passions! High Achiever!

Other pleasures-

My teaching schedule at Geneva College (Beaver Falls, PA)). It was a career that I loved. My courses included lecturing and teaching in the Humanities, Fine Art Studio classes, and special courses in English literature.

My studies and teaching extended to include a month-long course I taught while living in Europe every summer. I wrote and drew in my sketchbook every day as I traveled.

My first book, Concerti: Psalms for the Pilgrimage developed from my sketchbook jottings and drawings. Life was a grand adventure.

In my artist’s life, I was having exhibitions all over the world and had done so since 1976. Literature and art are my passions. I was so blessed to be living my dream.

In a day, that all ended. While I say it ended, what really happened is that it all changed dramatically when I lost my vision due to Ischemic Optic Neuropathy. How does a person pick up the pieces and move on, when it seems that you have lost everything you have in your life? The answer is one that comes slowly – over time. The answer unravels, day by day, year after year. It has now been eleven years since my own personal disaster stopped me cold.

When I thought I was finished

and my life was over –

I was mistaken!

I’ve moved on in my art making to new places where I might never have gone without the sight loss. However, I realize now that my mind was going into uncharted territory before the sight loss.

In my writing life, I have written about sight loss by creating some essays about individual works of art that I created after I began to recover. I had intense rehabilitation training – but it took a few years for me to be able to do art work again.

I realized that I do not want to be represented by blindness. It was not my choice and I will never embrace it. I will never “get over it.”

I seldom say that I am blind because I don’t want to be viewed through that lens.

But there! I have spoken about what I think of this disability.

I am blind.

Yet, I write books.

Yet, I make fine art.

Yet, I walk by INNER VISION, not SIGHT

Yet, my art is in international exhibitions.

Yet, I win awards for my art and writing.

Yet, my life is active and wholesome.

Yet, I have a voice and I will use that voice to speak through literature and art.

All’s well.

Though I walk in cloudy mists and shadow…

Yet, I walk!

Today, as I read the comments that one of my physically challenged guests wrote to me, I began to think more about my own visual challenges.

I know some visitors to my blog will read this story and will be inspired and encouraged, to face their own life situations no matter what they are. I want you to know we all give a voice to what we all deal with every day.

Some of us offer hope & insight with our words.

Some of us speak to the world through our works of art.

Some of us write extensively and create works of art also.

However, we choose to do it, we put a voice to our thoughts in our creative works.

If you were to scratch down through the surface of me, you will find that I am an artist at the core, and my writing evolves from art – and art-related ideas. My writing is created as I would create a work of art – in many layers. These days, in my writing studio, I am layering words and images as I paint the pictures that come through in poetry and non-fiction essays.

You are not a disability.

You are not a handicap.

You are courage personified.

The world needs to hear what you have to say.

____________________

“Saturday is for Sharing is created by Lynda McKinney Lambert.

Copyright June 30, 2018. All Rights Reserved.

PLEASE pass this message along to you friends today.

Please comment at the end of this message. Please re-blog.

Thank you for visiting with me today. Happy Final Saturday of June, 2018.

4 thoughts on “Saturday is for Sharing – Musings on Saturday Morning”

Patty, thank you for your leadership and great ideas. It is so refreshing to work with someone like you – you really are a gifted teacher. You have taught me so much in these few short weeks that my head is spinning. Amazing things are taking place which I am so excited about.

Alice, thank you for your wonderful note about the structure of writing and painting.
In painting, and really in all contemporary art, the structure is found as we work. It is not predetermined – so it is much more difficult for you are always working in the unknown and unexplored realm. I would liken art making to being a truck driver. We do the same job. We pick up information, or a load, and we transport it to a different place. We do not know what we are picking up to transport – but we go by instinct – We keep picking up information and transporting it until, at last, the work is completed. It is an amazing and exciting journey for we never know the destination until we get there. We never know when we begin, where the journey will take us. I approach my writing exactly the same way as I do art making. the key is to remain open at every step on the way.

Good Saturday! Lynda–I was pleased to read your blog post today. Your comparing an artist’s layering of paint on canvas with a writer’s layering of words is outstanding analogy! When teaching college writing courses, I used to compare building a house with writing an essay; however, the comparison with a creative artist’s work makes me wish I could share this analogy with students today (if I were not retired from teaching).

Very much looking forward to your “Saturday Is for Sharing”–Alice and Willow